Boosting the required grade-point average for teachers in New Jersey doesn’t guarantee we’ll get the best person in front of the classroom. Great teachers learn through experience.

But it does raise a good signpost for the profession, to tell teachers they must live up to a higher standard.

And as a practical matter, we don’t want to get stuck with the castoffs. Our neighbors in Delaware, Pennsylvania and Connecticut have already tightened their GPA requirements, and we can’t let New Jersey be the state of last resort for teachers who didn’t make the cut.

Which is why the Christie administration is seeking to raise the standard here, too, requiring teachers to get at least a 3.0 GPA in college, with some leeway for those with at least a 2.75. That’s in addition to a new performance test required for certification.

The new regulations, which apply only to those graduating in September 2014 or later, are still being fine-tuned. The administration will be gathering input from the public until Nov. 15, when the state Board of Education votes on the policy.

As a tool for ensuring that we recruit the best and brightest teachers, this one is imperfect. A GPA isn’t necessarily the best indicator of a teacher’s qualifications. After all, is a student who gets a 3.0 at a mediocre college necessarily brighter than one who gets a 2.9 at Princeton?

We must make sure there’s enough flexibility for promising people. And we don’t want students to avoid tough courses to reduce the risk of falling below the threshold, or for schools to inflate grades to ensure their graduates are eligible for the jobs they train for.

But setting a higher standard will help professionalize teaching, and make the job more attractive to better students. It’s part of a larger cultural shift that should include raising the caliber of teacher education programs, too many of which have flimsy requirements.

These diploma mills are geared toward generating revenue, with little incentive to improve, so it’s hard to evaluate the quality of the teachers they churn out.

Setting a higher GPA standard won’t fix that. But we do want more smart teachers in New Jersey — and as long as there’s enough wiggle room, it can’t hurt.